


and if i were you, i wouldn't love me neither

by barnettdidit



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Get yo ass ready peeps, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, This is a doozy, but a happy ending for your soul, lots of angst lads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-25 03:04:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21349216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barnettdidit/pseuds/barnettdidit
Summary: In a world where your soulmate's first thought upon meeting you is tattooed somewhere on your body, Amy Santiago has got no time to try and find her soulmate. Her focus is solely on her career, and nothing else. Even when her resurfaced feelings for her best friend start making things a bit difficult - yes, even then.
Relationships: Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago
Comments: 35
Kudos: 241





	and if i were you, i wouldn't love me neither

**Author's Note:**

> This is a warning for anyone who doesnt like angst. This is the angstiest shit I've ever written.  
Title taken from the song Despicable by grandson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XkxjsiZoeo
> 
> Thank the heavens to kamelea, who helped me work out the plot and who proofread this. I honestly couldn't have done this without you.

-

Amy Santiago closed her heavy lids for a mere second, but the unforgiving, blinding shine from the LED lights above them refused to give her a rest. Fighting against the rising temptation within her to yawn, she cracked her knuckles and gazed towards her partner standing next to her as he leaned across the table close to their perps face, lamenting in a quiet, albeit dangerous voice – the one she only ever heard from him when interrogating criminals – about how disgusting his crimes were, how they had him dead to rights with witnesses and DNA evidence and just how nice prisons were from the inside.

Amy couldn’t have been less useless as a statue in the corner of the room, but she knew that Jake could handle it. Judging from the perps’ face, his expression twisted with an array of feelings she couldn’t even place, cheeks red and eyes watery, he was going to confess any second now.

“… and just so we’re clear again, more than four witnesses saw you leaving the site only minutes after the upstairs neighbour heard a scream, and there was enough evidence under Galman’s fingernails to make a clone of you and force him to confess, too-“

“Alright I did it! But only because of her!”

The voice of their suspect turned murderer boomed through the room as fat tears spilled over and streamed down the man’s cheeks. Amy was shaken awake by the sudden confession and Jake had shut up too, watching the man in front of them crack open like an egg.

His muddy, greyish eyes flew between them with a hint of hope, a kind of understanding, but both detectives had their best poker faces on.

“I did it for Katrin!”, he cried with a strained voice, sobbing as to let it out in small bursts.

“She’s my soulmate, you need to understand, please, he used to be her boss and that fucking swine _touched _her, he told her she’d get a promotion if she just _fucked_ him, and she’s never been the same since and I had to do something, you don’t understand-“, his sentence broke off as the meek form of the man in front of them folded, head hanging low as he sobbed tears and snot, just sometimes interrupting to let out another cry riddled with pain.

Amy was definitely awake now as nothing but the strangled noises of someone so desperate filled the room to the brim. Her gaze trailed up to Jake and they exchanged a short look before Jake rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue sideways for a second, absent of any remorse for their perp. It was a rather popular motive for murder, assault or similar; to protect one’s soulmate.

Every cop had dozens of cases where someone was driven to a crime to somehow better their soulmate’s life. An array of fascinating, scientific reports proved that soulmates, when faced with the growing connection to their other half, or that connection possibly being broken, could act irrationally in the most crazy ways imaginable, turning them into different people, incapable of forming and executing rational thoughts.

Amy could never imagine stopping acting like herself just because of her soulmate. Despite the facts, it seemed ridiculous.

“Go home. I’ll get the signed confession”, Jake mumbled under the continuous crying of their newest arrest and Amy’s chest heaved with relief. God, she was so tired.

“Thank you”, she mouthed and scrambled to stand up, carefully soothing the fabric of her suit before picking up the file in front of her, all while Jake watched her with a joyous glint, lips pressed together tightly as not to reveal a smile. Amy stilled.

“What?”, she whispered.

“Nothing, I just think it’s funny how you still want to look professional when it’s literally two am.”

He now flashed his toothy grin and Amy’s mouth almost twitched into a smile. Almost.

“Shut up”, she mumbled with a roll of her eyes and Jake released a quiet chuckle.

“See ya”, he said as he sat down and diverted his entire attention to the perp in front of him again. Amy almost considered staying to watch, but was swiftly reminded of the time by the clock on the wall behind the perp. It was really time to get to bed.

“Jake Peralta’s the greatest!”

The voice heavy with braggy undertones boomed through the bullpen as Jake walked in, arms raised high and the biggest smile on his face, the one that only closed cases and caught murderers could make appear. Amy shook her head and turned back to the paperwork in front of her.

“What’cha do Jakey? Find your soulmate?!”, Charles chirped immediately, already proud of the most important man in his life.

“What? No. Ew, gross. Much better, I got a confession last night! Amy was there. Santiago, tell him”, Jake said and pointed at Amy as he walked towards their conjoined desks, throwing his leather jacket onto a mountain of piles of evidence as he sat down.

“Did he, Amy?”, Charles squealed, and Amy hid a smile.

“Yes, he did. Proud now?”, she directed the last part at Jake, whose hand was suddenly filled with a bunch of fruit roll-ups that had appeared out of nowhere.

“Very”, he gleamed through a stuffed mouth. Every morning, he brought a variety of sweets that served as his breakfast, and Amy would probably never stop wondering how his teeth hadn’t rotten out of his mouth already.

“If you’re so great, why don’t you do the paperwork too, hmm?”, Amy quipped, and Jake released a playfully shocked gasp.

“Amy Santiago, you know I can’t take that away from you. You’d curl up in a ball and cry if I didn’t leave you the opportunity to _at least _do the paperwork, after I did all of the other work already- “

“Shut up”, she said, sending Jake’s rubber ball that had rolled onto her desk back towards its owner. Jake caught it with an annoyingly good reflex, one hand still holding a bunch of sugary treats.

“I know you love me, Santia- “

“Detectives Santiago and Peralta, into my office please.”

Holt’s voice interrupted their bantering and Amy flinched at the notion of having been caught in such silly activities during work, scrambling to follow her mentor in his office, closely followed by Jake.

“I just got a call from the sheriff in Tottenville about your perp Jesse Hermick, who skipped bail last week.”

Amy nodded dutifully, immediately recalling the file connected to the name. “We arrested him for seven counts of identity theft.”

Holt watched her; lips set in a thin line as he waited for her to finish.

“Yes, precisely. The sheriff wants you two to pick him up tomorrow morning at seven am. Here are the transfer forms.”

Amy took the file out of her captain’s hands before Jake could move, lest he dropped some of his breakfast onto it.

“I can trust you two to organize yourselves according to the matter.”

“You sure can, Cap’n!”, Jake said as he stretched his arms over his head, having sat down in one of the chairs without an invitation as soon as they had entered.

“Do not call me Cap’n”, Holt deadpanned, and Amy sighed.

“Aw, c’mon, pet names would make the office so much cuter- “

“Dismissed.”

Jake’s whining stopped abruptly, and Amy grabbed his arm to drag him out of their Captain’s office, file clutched close to her chest.

“I think it’s best if we drive up there tonight and pick up the perp in the morning. I’ll book us a hotel.”

“Good thinking. I’ll take care of the snacks”, Jake quipped and returned immediately to another pile of fruit rolls that were all over his keyboard.

“So, when are you driving up there?”, Charles asked and clinked his beer bottle against Jake’s. Amy checked her watch.

“We’re leaving in half an hour, tops.”

It was after their shift and Terry had volunteered to buy everyone a drink to celebrate the announcement of his third pregnancy, and Amy had given up hers to Jake, who would definitively not be driving later.

“And did you book a hotel?”

Amy nodded slowly at the peculiar question, brought to her by a big smile on Boyle’s face.

“Only one room, perhaps? I mean, if you two sleep in one room together, who knows what crazy romantic things could happen – “

“Alright, I’m done”, Amy sighed and got up, leaving a groaning Jake to deal with his overbearing best friend. Wounding through the crowd at Shaw’s, Amy quickly found Rosa, who was leaning against the counter with a bottle in her hand as well, face set in stone as she stared ahead, not talking to a single soul. Before Amy could say anything, Rosa’s eyes shot up to hers and with a clear edge in her voice: “Sarge is telling the story of how he and Sharon met again. Say something about soulmates and I’ll kill you.”

Amy held up her hands almost apologetically as Rosa walked past her, into the crowd, and Amy saw just now the gathering of friends around her superior, who was telling the heart-warming story of how Sharon and him had realized that their tattoos complied with each other’s.

It was a tale as old as time. Everyone had heard the stories, which all just sounded the same, a conglomerate of realizations and happiness and warm, fuzzy love that had not yet been handed to Amy on a silver platter.

How often had she asked her mother to tell her the story when she was little, craving the unbreakable bond she witnessed between her parents every day? How many times had her mother rolled up her sleeves to reveal her tattoo just above her elbow that said _“Oh, she’s on time and cute, too.”_, recalling how flustered Amy’s father had been during their very first meeting?

Amy climbed onto a barstool and propped her head up on her hand, staring into the Sarges direction - still very animatedly telling his story to his intent listeners, even though they had heard it endless times already - as her lost memories and thoughts kept her eyes glassy and unfocused, and she automatically scratched her left ankle with the tip of her right shoe, thinking of the words on her skin there that she had known by heart since the moment she could read.

_You’re way too cute to love rules so much._

The first thought her soulmate had about her. For a long time, she detested the implication that her soulmate wouldn’t approve of her love for rules, but after all of her boyfriends – the last one being Teddy – she had learned to just not really think about it anymore. She didn’t want to, because she was almost thirty already, entirely focused on her career, and telling people that she hadn’t found her soulmate already at that age and stage of her life was far too awkward.

Sometimes, just every blue moon, she would allow her thoughts to wander and wonder, who her soulmate might be. What he acted and looked like, how he made her feel, and if he could put the same shine and glimmer in her eyes that her mother always had when talking about her dear husband.

How she longed for that glimmer in her life.

“Santiago, ready to go?!”

The loud voice boomed out of nowhere right into her right ear and Amy, far away in the land of thoughts just mere seconds ago, flinched heavily, her dark hair flying as her head whipped to face her insufferable best friend and even more insufferable colleague, grinning brightly and vibrating with the jitter of ten well-rested horses.

Jake plus a few beers always brought out an even more child-like, jumpy version of himself, and Amy had learned to adore his antics. They were such a stark contrast to the serious, focused man who had pressed out a confession from a murderer just the night before.

“Yeah, just let me get my jacket- “, she sighed as she slid off the wobbly barstool.

“Already got it. Let’s go.”

With that, Jake pushed her coat and purse into her hand and took off into the crowd towards the exit and Amy watched him disappear with a shake of her head.

It was a clear sky and the freezing wind gushed into her room with a gust of air, making the hairs on her arms stand up with a shudder.

“Peralta, it is eleven pm. You cannot be serious.”

This was _ridiculous. _How did her idiot-partner always get her into these situations?

“Please Ames, my toes are literally falling off. They’re blue.”

Amy raised her eyebrows.

“Don’t check that. Could you really let me die? How will you live with that on your conscience? They will find my cold, dead body tomorrow morning and all everyone will say is just ‘Oh, she could have stopped it, but her heart was already too frozen- “

“Oh my god, fine!”, Amy groaned and turned to face away from her partners begging eyes – eyes she could never deny anything – and she speed-walked through the stuffy, gloomy motel room towards the bathroom.

“I hope you don’t move around in your sleep or snag the blanket, because I will actually kill you.”

The door to her motel room closed and there was a noise of a springy mattress being exhausted due to her partner presumably having himself thrown onto it rather unceremoniously.

“Thank you Ameeeeey!”, he shouted.

Amy squirted a pea-sized droplet of minty paste onto her brush and started brushing her teeth in a most aggressive manner. Of course they had gotten a room with a broken heater, leaving Peralta at her door begging to sleep in her room for the night. In the end, she couldn’t deny him of course; though it did seem like a horrible decision.

Teddy’s departure from her love life had stirred up old, unwanted feelings again and sleeping in the same bed as her best friend slash old crush slash guy who was completely over her, was one of the less advisable things she had done in a while. God, what if he slept shirtless?

Amy almost choked on a bit of toothpaste foam at the thought. Her mind raced away like a speed car.

He had been freezing for the past few hours, or so he claimed. What if he would search her body warmth during his sleep? What if she woke up at night with his body draped around hers, unable nor willing to escape his scent and heat?

She suppressed a groan and shut her eyes tight, erasing all thoughts of a bed-headed, toothy-smiled, sleepy Peralta from her head. This was strictly professional. He was her friend, and colleague, and that’s all she was to him, too.

“Did you choke and die on that toothbrush?”

Amy bent down to spit out the foam and remaining paste and gurgled with water. This was going to be a long night.

“Jake, I swear to god.”

“I’m sorry! It just happens. I’m not used to only having half the space.”

“Well, I don’t care. Know your boundaries or it’s back to your cave.”

Amy’s peripheral vision allowed her a rather funny sight of a brooding Jake covered by the blankets up to his chin, his bottom lip pushed forward in a move she used to perform as a child left wanted.

She was propped up against the headboard, book in hand with the little light given to her by the lamp next to her, while Jake was snuggling into the blankets intensely, eyes glued to his phone.

“You’re mean.”

“I sure am”, she mumbled, eyes focused on the page in front of her. She had been reading the same page for about ten minutes now, but to no avail. Her partner’s body heat so close to her underneath the covers was just being ridiculously distracting at this point. Plus the fact that he was constantly kicking his legs, sometimes landing on her half of the bed and even touching her foot and ankle on occasion, made it somehow worse. The only comfort was the fact that Jake did, in fact, wear a shirt to sleep – albeit one tighter than his usual ones.

Her heart was beating ferociously and Amy blamed it on a variety of things; the love-stricken murderer they had questioned a night prior and the Sarge’s story were entirely at fault for her thinking of the soulmate nonsense once again, and it was just natural that being so close to Jake – the last person she had really liked (because honestly, Teddy was never going to work out) – would make her jittery.

“I’m not getting anywhere, I’m too tired.”

With that, Amy put her reading marker into the page and placed the closed book on her nightstand, checking her manual clock to see if her alarm was set correctly just one more time.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m barely seeing anything anymore”, Jake mumbled accompanied by a stifled yawn, and at once the spare light from his phone was gone too, leaving the room in darkness as Amy slid deeper underneath the covers, back facing her partner and as close to the edge of the bed as possible so maybe she could forget about his existence in her immediate proximity.

“Night”, she said, rubbing her eyes.

“Nighty-night”; her partner’s sleepy voice countered.

Amy stared ahead at the grainy wall in front of her, only visible because of the streetlights outside on the streets, eyelids heavy against her fast-beating heart, ears straining to pick up on the steady breathing behind her.

This was going to be a long night.

When Amy woke up, there was an immediate knowledge from deep within her gut that she was in deep trouble.

It might have been the heavy arm draped over her waist, or the hot breath in her neck, blowing up single strands of her hair with every single one, or the feeling of a warm chest snug against her back, or the absolutely overwhelmingly nice smell of what, cheap cologne and leather?

Or it might have been the number of her alarm clock showing her the time.

It was 5.40am. Her alarm was going to go off in exactly 20 minutes, and if she didn’t manage to get out of her best friends ridiculously comfortable embrace, he would wake up, too, leaving them in perhaps the most embarrassed since she’d had to kiss Gordon Freeley during Spin the Bottle back in seventh grade.

But dear god, they were adults. Stuff like this happened. Platonic cuddling – _how did he smell so darn good? – _was something they could get over, surely.

Amy’s brain resembled scrambled eggs as she struggled to make a clear thought through the situation. This had been a bad idea, letting him sleep here, she knew it, but also, how often had she dreamed of waking up like this with him? Feeling how his body fit against hers, how his breath would send goosebumps across her body? How could she deny herself the pleasure of lying safely in the arms of the man she trusted most in the world?

It was wrong. They were friends and colleagues, and everything else was in the past. Stretching this out would just make it more awkward.

When Amy’s gaze snapped up to the alarm clock again, it was 5.49. She had to handle quickly.

Or, she could just savour the first and last time she would ever be in Jakes arm’s like this. Screw professionality. It was warm and cozy, just the right amount of contact – was one of his legs draped over hers? – and it was never going to happen again. Amy could have this.

Eleven minutes later, the blaring, shrill rattling of her alarm clock ripped her out of the shortest, most amazing nap Amy had ever experienced and for a moment, her mind had managed to elude the situation she had willingly put herself in. The illusion of a normal morning was shattered right when the sound of a groan reached her ears, a gust of breath pushed against her neck and the flinch of an arm that had been lying across her, before the body behind hers moved.

She looked down, expecting his hand resting comfortable against the bedsheets in front of her stomach, but with the speed of lighting it had been swept back and the mattress heaved with the weight of an entire human being jumping from one end to the other.

Amy rolled onto her back with a groggy sigh and was greeted with the sight of a rather dishevelled, wide-eyed Jake who had fled to the far end of his side, sitting upright with a rosy flush in his cheek, lips parted with a shiver.

“Morning, cuddle-head”, Amy slurred, already missing his heat.

“Santiago, I’m sorry, I should have warned you, I get really cuddly when I’m cold – “

Back to reality she was. It would have been too nice, really.

“It happens. Don’t worry about it”, she said with a pathetic sliver of waver in her voice and she turned back around to pick up her phone as if to check any new notifications, and mostly, to get this over with as quickly as possible.

“Sure, you’re right, uh- Imma go to the, the bath real quick- “

The sound of bare footsteps smacking against the carpeted floor in quick procession and the slam of a door later, Amy pulled the blanket over her head and groaned into the balled-up piece of fabric in front of her mouth. Why couldn’t she have been just logical and found a way out of their cuddling position? Now everything was awful and awkward, and also it was just unfair how cute his messy hair was, it really should be illegal – she was a cop after all, maybe she could actually arrest him…

Gordon Freeley’s toothy, wet kiss in front of her friends seemed minor to this. It felt ridiculous, absolutely laughable, but Amy couldn’t help it against that gut-feeling she always got when something embarrassing happened involving someone she had just a slight crush on. And whatever crush she had on Jake was a big one, humongous, enormous enough to bring her whole world out of balance.

As Amy was snuggled into the tight blanket she had cocooned herself in, away from Jake and the world, she heard the sound of the shower in the adjacent room, water sprinkling the lined floor in the bathroom, and she dearly hoped that his shower would be long enough for them to avoid awkward silences before they had to leave.

Two hours had passed since the unforgiving screaming of Amy’s alarm clock had disturbed the best nights sleep she had had in a long while, and the mood had significantly lightened up thanks to her partners admirable ability to overplay any situation with foolish and childish behaviour and jokes, a habit that had become disturbingly endearing to her.

A detective from Tottenville’s police station had called them 20 past six to inform them that there would be a delay with their perp, and they didn’t have to show up until nine am, rendering Amy furious with the lack of professionality, which now proved their whole night spent up here completely useless. She could have avoided this, but no, that damn sheriff was apparently so cursingly disorganized-

“Peralta, are you gonna get dressed soon? We only have an hour left for breakfast. I can’t believe it took you two hours to pack your bag.”

Jake’s head emerged from behind the foot end of the bed, where he had been crouched down to stuff a myriad of random items into his large backpack. Apparently he had to bring all five of his Die Hard copies (almost convincing Amy to watch the first one after they got the first call) and lots of other roshambo like mini-basketball hoops with the fitting mini-basketball, rubber balls, bouncy balls - just a lot of balls. Every time he had tried to pack his stuff, he immediately got distracted with another one of his toys and then spent some time absent-mindedly playing with it while rambling to Amy about the most random stuff; how he really wanted one of these wooden figures artists used to recreate body postures but won’t get one because he might fear he would break off bits and pieces, or how he once ate cat food as a little kid on a dare and kind of kept the memory of it tasting somewhat good and was consequently still fighting the urge to consume it again in his adult life, just to know – stuff like that. Classic Peralta stuff.

“You’re just jealous ‘cause you don’t have all this cool stuff. All I saw in your bag was pantsuits and dare I say, a secret cigarette stash- “

“Jake, why were you looking in my bag?!”, Amy shrieked, cheeks red hot. What if he found her stash of condoms securely tucked away in a side-pocket?

Her partner’s innocent expression didn’t falter one bit as he gave a non-chalant shrug. “I needed your concealer to cover a zit. Don’t worry, that’s all I saw!”

“You’re impossible!”, she quaked and gripped the nearest pillow, throwing it at him blindly, but he ducked away just fast enough with a loud cackle.

“Catch!”

And the mini-basketball came flying towards her, caught at the last second with lightning fast reflexes she had learned in the academy, and with the aim of the most accurate shooter of her class, she hurled it into the far upper corner of the room where it landed on top of the dresser, coming to a stop at the very back.

Peralta’s expression was absolutely priceless.

His voice was loud and shrill against her giggling. “I can’t believe you’d do that! Santiago, you heartless-“

“Just go get it, you learned your lesson”, she smiled and fell back onto the springy mattress and she watched as his incessant complaining ceased into a mumbling cursing.

She probably shouldn’t have been watching however, because when he reached up to feel around the dusty top of the dresser, his shirt exposed a sliver of skin just above the hip – a peek at his waist, and the sight of which was already straining for Amy’s sanity, but there was something else – Pitch-black words tattooed on his skin, clear as day and visible enough for Amy to read them, even from her position a few feet away.

_What a nice smile._

In a world like the one they lived in, first impressions were very important. Some people kept diaries of their first thoughts when meeting someone new so they wouldn’t forget them, in case they had met their soulmate and needed to identify their own thought on their body.

Amy used to do that too, but when the pressure to excel at her studies became too overwhelming, the habit ceased. It was only thanks to her extraordinary memory that she could still remember most of the first thoughts she’d had whenever she had met someone new.

Her first thought about Terry was something about how strong and intimidating he seemed. Rosa had been terrifying, Gina seemed kind of arrogant at first, Charles was a sweet guy, albeit much less intimidating than Terry, and Holt was her mentor-to-be.

And Jake had a nice smile.

_“Amy, what’s your tattoo say?”, Terry asked, still beaming from just telling Sharon’s and his story once again. Amy smiled ruefully._

_“I won’t say what it is, but it’s very sweet. I think it fits me well.”_

_Rosa shrugged and took another sip from her beer. Gina was glued to her phone while gripping a fruity cocktail in her free hand, and Charles leaned over the booth-table towards his best friend, hands splayed onto the sticky wood, eyes wide._

_“What about you, Jakey? What does your tattoo say?”, he chirped._

_Jake who had been staring off into space suddenly snapped back into reality at him being spoken to, and his unfocused eyes landed on Boyle._

_“I don’t have one, Boyle. You know that.”_

_And thus, the topic was done._

Amy had later found out from Charles that Jake had always refused to even acknowledge the existence of his tattoo. It was a ridiculous to claim he didn’t have one, because everyone did. Everyone had it somewhere, they just had to be lucky enough to find the perfect fit.

She had always figured that his parents' messy divorce had scared him away from the concept of soulmates. But it wasn’t just a concept; it was a reality. Everyone had one. He just had the misfortune of witnessing one of few, far in between cases in which the connection didn’t work out.

She had never asked him further about it. She never felt the need to, because his avoidance of the topic kind of made her forget he even had a tattoo.

Until now, until said tattoo sprang at her with an earth-shattering realization as she saw her own thought written black on white.

How had she never thought of this? How had the possibility never crossed her mind? How was this real? Had she been blind all along?

During the five to ten second that revealed the skin above his hip, Amy’s entire world collapsed like a flimsy card-house and she almost didn’t realize when he walked towards her, his mouth moving while her glazed eyes stared right through him, stricken with the shock of realization.

His brows knitted together in confusion as his lips moved again, but Amy couldn’t even hear what he was saying. All she could see were the years worth of passed opportunities, both of their romantic mishaps, and how it all just seemed to knot into a ball of confusion and misunderstanding in her cotton-filled head.

“Don’t feel so well, sorry”, she mumbled and scrambled to rush past her clearly bewildered partner and into the bathroom, closing it and sinking onto the closed toilet, head in her hands as she tried to calm down the feelings of panic and lack of self-control bubbling up from deep within her, mouthing mantras she had remembered from her childhood, sweet nothings her mother would whisper in her ear whenever she was anxious or panicky.

The incessant white noise pushing onto her ears ceased after a considerable while and all Amy was left with was her own shivering self, sunken into herself onto the toilet of a sub-par motel room with her partner, best friend and actual soulmate just outside the door, knocking and presumably asking desperately if she was okay, or if he could do anything.

_This just couldn’t be true. How did they never figure it out before?_

Jake and Amy had definitely seen each other in various stages of undress – undercover missions requiring costumes on short notice with no changing rooms and many nights in the precinct working on hard cases made sure of that. How had she never seen the tattoo before? Had she just blocked it out completely?

It was true, until their recent perp turned murderous in favour of his beloved soulmate, she hadn’t thought of finding her soulmate in a long time, maybe even years. She knew Teddy and she didn’t belong to each other for eternity; he was just a more or less serious spot in the large, almost completely blank space that was her love life. She really hadn’t considered the possibility of having met her soulmate already in a long while.

“Amy, should I call the ambulance? Do you feel sick? Please answer, or I’m gonna kick in the door”, Jakes desperate cries reached her just as the fog in her mind started to clear up, and she managed to gurgle up a strained, guttural sound that turned into a moaned “I’m alright”.

The near panic-attack she had just managed to avoid was bubbling down steadily and she pulled herself up by the sink to give herself a look in the mirror. A few strands of her hair had fallen out of her ponytail and her eyes had a sore shimmer, but she looked mostly okay.

“I think I ate something bad, might be a stomach bug”, she groaned and there was an audible sigh from the other side of the door.

“Thank god, I thought you were unconscious, or dying in there. Do you want me to get you something? There’s water in your bag, or I have blue Gatorade, but I don’t think that’ll help- “

“Just some water, please”, Amy croaked, head hung heavy over the sink.

She had heard of heavy reactions when soulmates realized that they were just that, but she really couldn’t tell if it was a reaction induced by the universe’s will to finally push them together – or if her anxiety had just pushed her over the edge, almost towards an enormous panic attack.

Her mind ran amok with uncontained, messy thoughts circling the revelation of Jake’s tattoo. Shouldn’t she tell him?

Her heavy breathing stilled for a moment. What if she was over-reacting? Telling him could be a rash decision. After all, they had met five years ago. Despite her good memory, it would be no surprise if she was remembering wrong. Maybe she was just falling victim to the power of suggestion. It wouldn’t be the first time that her anxious, over-thinking nature would get her into an awkward situation.

What if she was wrong and she was just jumping the gun? Telling him could forever alter their friendship, in case she was wrong. Amy couldn’t risk that. Their friendship was worth too much to her, more than most anything else.

“Can you open up? I got the water.”

Ah yes, outside of her existential crisis there was still Jake, waiting in front of the door. She had almost forgotten about his immediate presence, but like so often, it was impossible to ignore.

Amy turned the lock and the door was pushed open instantly, revealing Jake with worrying and understanding eyes, water bottle in his hand that he pushed towards her. She grabbed it with still a slight shiver in her bones and took a swig, inhaling a deep breath with closed eyes as she recollected her sanity.

She jumped at the sudden feeling of a warm hand on her forehead and her eyes were wide open in an instant, watching Jake as he retreated and pulled out his phone.

“You feel a bit warm. I think it’s best to get you home as soon as possible. Let’s go to the precinct.”

All of the fun and silly demeanour was gone; Jake had turned into a serious, calm version of himself she rarely got to see. She followed him out with slow, heavy steps, watching silently as he packed the rest of his backpack in seconds, stuffed all of her remaining items in her bag as well and before shouldering both, helped her into her coat, and off they were to the reception.

“We’re half an hour early. They won’t have the perp ready yet”, Amy mumbled meekly in her passengers’ seat after Jake gave her daggering stares after she’d attempted to open the driver’s door. He was already starting up the car and reversing out of their spot.

“After I talk to them, they will. Hey, what about I drop you off at home when we get back? I’ll explain to Holt that you’re feeling unwell.”

Amy stared at him in awe. “You’d do that?”

He threw her a short glance accompanied by an encouraging smile.

“Of course. You scared me shitless back there, and the 99 needs their best detective in tip-top shape.”

Amy’s eyes couldn’t seem to be capable of tearing themselves away as she stared at Jake’s profile, who was focused back on the road again. There looked to be no end to the surprises stored in this man, and Amy was too exhausted to fight the warm, fuzzy feeling spreading from the deepest point in her gut.

Amy used to love the sound of her alarm. It was the promise of another day filled with productivity, the ability to work and do what she loved, surrounded by people she trusted and adored. This was not the case anymore.

When the trusty sound of her alarm clock started quaking at exactly 6.30 am like it did every morning, she groaned with the pain of having to get up and face another day at work. Before she knew it, she had pressed snooze and hurled the device against the nearest wall, where it presumably ceased to be a whole piece, judging from the sound of various plastic pieces clattering onto the ground beneath.

It had been two weeks since Jake and her had gone down to Tottenville, and after a day off spent creating To-Do Lists, throwing them away and creating new ones while wrecking her brain and entire self, Amy had been left with no idea what to do at all.

Because, as she had realized with her face buried in the carpet of her living room, even if Jake was indeed her soulmate – there was no guarantee that he would want to pursue that relationship. He was obviously averse to the topic with his refusal to even acknowledge the existence of his soulmate, so who was to say that he wouldn’t reject her? What if telling him would make it all worse, even if they were soulmates?

This seemed to be a Lose-Lose situation. So in order to retain her sanity, Amy had been forced to distance herself – much to Peralta’s dislike.

Jake might have been an inattentive man-child with no consciousness of adult responsibilities, but he was smarter than he let on. He picked up on clues, combined them at rapid speeds and was able to find the meaning behind them with the kind of skill Amy longed for.

He was a natural at what they did. Talented enough for the both of them to have the grossly same number of arrests every month, despite his inability to properly process paperwork. The knowledge that if he worked as hard as her, he would surpass her with ease, used to bug Amy endlessly. That had stopped a long time, but once again she cursed her partner’s wit, because it had taken him exactly one hour and 23 minutes after she came back to realize that something was off.

_“Hey, are you all right? The stomach bug gone?”_

What a ridiculously innocent question, but the careful expression in his eyes, eager to pick up on any clues in her answer or body language made it far too obvious that he knew; he knew something was up. He knew she was avoiding his eyes, fleeing his presence and answering in short sentences before she even realized that she did.

The human curse that was Jake Peralta just kept getting worse. And he was persistent, too.

The exhaustion that was work consisted of this: Never look up, avoid going anywhere alone, don’t make eye-contact and _don’t give in._

Jake, a self-proclaimed attention-whore, had made it his life-mission to find out what Amy’s issue was. Countless of times Amy had almost dropped files, coffee mugs and sandwiches at his sudden appearance behind her, loudly asking what she was doing and every time she gave the shortest answer possible just to flee back to more crowded spaces. The only rooms she dared go to alone were Holt’s office and the bathroom.

This really wasn’t that much of an issue though; Amy had taken to getting so focused on her paperwork and cases, it was easy enough to forget her afternoon snack usually consumed in the break room. No, what made this all the much more difficult was the fact that well, they were still desk-partners, and even if she didn’t look at him, he made up for it for staring at her for ridiculous amounts of times, trying to catch her attention with stupid jokes and off-hand comments, the kind of thing she would usually giggle at, which were now strictly forbidden. It would make the flood-gates open, the doors in her chest that she had put locks onto in order not to get hurt. Because, as she kept reminding herself, this was a Lose-Lose situation. And there was no one she could talk to about it, because who could ever understand not being able to talk to their soulmate?

Entire movie franchises were based on it. The media evolved around it. Celebrities tattoos were the subject of rumours and scandals, questions answered. There was a myriad of quizzes online about “Who could your soulmate be based on your tattoo?”. Almost every rom com had tattoos as their subject; dramas surrounding it. What about soulmates who met so young, they weren’t matured enough to identify their thoughts? About those with memory-loss? Those that didn’t work out, who fled their bond to be with someone else?

Until now, Amy had never realized how much it was stuffed down everyone’s throat. Your life is your soulmate; find him, or you’re gonna die alone. Movie-plots were just that; the majority of people met their soulmates smoothly.

Oversimplifying the concept of love was what it was, and Amy had learned to hate it. She had written “Lose-Lose” on a Post-It and stuck it onto the corner of her desktop monitor, just so she wouldn’t forget. Because even if her heart tore apart every time she saw his messy desk, unruly hair and dark eyes staring questioning daggers, heard him joke or ramble quietly under his breath as he was attempting paperwork or solving a case, even if she knew that that hot ball in her chest that imploded into a waterfall of questions that made her fingers shiver as she wrote, there was such a small chance of it being true, of it working out the way it was supposed to because really, who was she?

Amy Santiago loved rules, and she was strict, and she was punctual and all the other things that were the opposite of Jake. Her proud parents had taught her to always love what she did and never falter in face of people who wouldn’t understand her, and she had carried on that legacy, that promise, for her entire life. She liked being the teacher’s pet, because everyone loved their pet. She loved her pantsuits because she felt professional in them, and she adored going shopping for new binders and cases and puzzling over life’s mystery in the most accurate, factual way possible, but Amy had met her nemesis at last.

This was the one mystery she could not solve. The kind of thing she would usually sink her teeth into to solve, but this was different; it was another calibre. It was so personal, so close to her heart, the possibility of being hurt so easy – she felt paralyzed. And it broke her. So, whenever she felt Jake’s eyes piercing her back when she joined Rosa for coffee in the break room or was called to Holt’s office, she just prayed that this would somehow, at some point, find its end. Because the longer this kept tearing her apart, the more difficult it would be to put herself back together again.

It was Friday afternoon and Amy had the weekend off. The free days she used to love for their possibility of productivity – cleaning her apartment, doing the laundry or just snuggling into her favourite living-room chair to read a good book – were now in favour because of an entirely new reason: spending the day buried in her bed, exhausted of ignoring her best friend all week. Because in the end, he really was her best friend, and she missed talking to him. Telling him snippets of drama in her life, when there was trouble at the bank earlier this week, or when some idiot running the red light almost hit her car, or when, when, when. The little things they used to laugh and joke about, the easiness she felt around him, able to be herself without being judged just one bit.

Amy had cried a lot the past days, needless to say.

She was packing her bag minutes before her shift ended, thinking of getting perogies and potato pancakes for dinner, when amidst the lazy-afternoon-business of the precinct, there was a poke in her shoulder. She looked up at Rosa, who was ready to leave.

“Hey, Gina and I wanted to grab a drink at Shaw’s. You wanna join us?”

Dear, sweet, terrifying Rosa had of course noticed the new tension between Amy and Jake, and without a question, resorted to always accompany Amy whenever she asked if she wanted another coffee with her. It wasn’t her business to ask what was up, so she didn’t even attempt to get an explanation, but her quiet, sober support was still quite a relief. A drink at Shaw’s was the perfect end to two exhausting weeks.

“I’d love to, thank you”, Amy breathed with a smile, and Rosa nodded.

Rosa was a snake and so was everyone else, Amy thought for the hundredth time this evening.

What was supposed to be a drink with Gina and Rosa was actually a ruse to get Amy to the bar where the two women left her after a few drinks with their valuables – impossible for Amy to leave because she had promised to wait until they came back from whenever they had gone – and at the same time, Charles had lured Jake into a separate booth at Shaw’s where they – or at least Jake – had gotten stupidly drunk.

That was when Charles decided he had to join Rosa and Gina in their secret hide-out, and dumped a very drunk Jake on Amy, who now both sat in the booth quietly with Amy attempting to make idle small talk while Jake had his head buried in his crossed arms, not even attempting to talk to her anymore.

_She could just leave their phones with the bartender. She could leave._

But Amy couldn’t bring herself to do it. Even the back of Jake’s head looked too sad for her to just abandon.

They sat in uneasy silence as music and loud conversations around them filled the room. Amy was occasionally sipping on her drink, and Jake, face still hidden from her in his left forearm, was scratching off the label of a beer bottle in his right hand.

Amy valued being able to be silent with someone without being awkward. That had never been an issue with Jake; his presence was quite often enough to just relax and feel comfortable.

She did not appreciate this silence. It hung heavy above their heads, suffocating and near deafening if it were not for the relief of Jake’s hidden expression. She wondered sometimes if he had fallen asleep, but the rhythmic scratch of his thumb over the same spot over and over again proved her wrong. He was almost catatonic. It was a state she had never seen him in before, and Amy couldn’t help but feel responsible.

In the end, they were best friends. Her behaviour wasn’t be easy on either of them, but she had no other choice – that’s what she had deduced, anyway. _Lose-Lose._

An hour had passed already, and Amy was considering calling Charles again, or maybe ordering an Uber to get Jake home, because whatever plan their sadistic colleagues had clearly wasn’t working out. The broken form that was Jake Peralta lain in front of her was not up for a confrontation, or even a conversation. Neither was she. The tension deep inside her from being so close to him after distancing herself for two weeks was frazzling her very self.

Just as Amy scrolled through her contacts for the fifth time, thumb hovering above the call-button underneath Charles’s number, the body in front of her moved and Jake emitted a loud groan, rolling his head around to reveal half of his face. It looked like he had entirely left his body for a while.

Amy watched as he lazily propped himself up on his elbows, eyes shut against the light above them and he rested his cheek on the heel of his hand. His lids peeled open slowly and he stared at the bottle in his hand, label almost scratched off completely.

“So, they had a cute plan, huh.”

Two weeks of worked-up tension inside of Amy broke like a flimsy string as she burst out a short, shrill laugh. Dear God.

“I’m sorry. I can order you an Uber home.”

Jake didn’t react right away, gaze still fixated on the alcohol in front of him. Then, with a quiet voice:

“You know, I get it. I mean, I don’t know why exactly, but I get it.”

Amy watched him questioningly. His words were slow and spoken with clear effort to sound like actual words, a sign that he was quite drunk. There was no follow-up though, and after a minute of silence, Amy found the words to match her thoughts.

“Jake, why do you never talk about your tattoo?”

For the first time this evening, his eyes met hers. And Amy’s already bleeding heart broke apart even further when she saw how dark and sorrowful they were, the bags under his eyes and the absolute lack of laughter and joy she was so accustomed to.

“Because it doesn’t matter. Because even if- “, he broke his sentence and rubbed over his mouth, closing his eyes for a second.

“Because even if- “, he continued with his lids shut, “even if I find that person who thought that when they first met me, they will know.”

“Know what?”, Amy wondered.

“They will know what a mess I am. How broken I am. They’ll see what my dad did, and they’ll know that it’s just a matter of time I turn into him, and when they realize, it’s already too late. So, I’ll just save everyone the trouble.”

Amy felt a choke close up her throat and it suffocated her; it felt like she was actually dying in that booth in front of Jake after a confession that she could be very well the first person to ever hear. She’d had no idea he had such thoughts.

“Jake, you’re not your father. You’ll never be.”

Jake opened his eyes at her whisper and a lazy smile spread across his face as he shook his head.

“I already am. I don’t know why else you’re ignoring me. I’ve wrecked my brain. I looked through months of messages and e-mails. I asked everyone. I don’t understand what I did. If I’ve lost you, the rest will leave, too.”

The urge to scream and cry, to fight and sob surged up in Amy at such a speed, it exploded out of her as she tried to hold her tears back, swimming in her eyes and turning Jake blurry. Her heart pounded in her chest, too overwhelmed with all of the shame, the confusion, the amount of self-doubt and -hate that ballooned up like it was being filled with hot air.

“Jake, it’s not your fault”, she croaked, tears making in her voice crack.

“Why then?”

His eyes were piercing through hers, not empty and broken anymore; they were determined, almost curious.

How was she going to tell him this? How could she, after blindly breaking his spirits for two whole weeks? She was so arrogant and blind. Jake had been dying right in front of her, and she’d had no idea.

A few deep, collected breaths later, Amy collected her thoughts and rummaged through them for the right words to say.

There were none. Her mind was blank, stuffed to the brim with the hotness, the fear, the anxiety of an upcoming panic attack. She was a coward, detestable, the most awful person in the entirety of America right now, but she couldn’t help herself. There was nothing to do. Her mind was swimming with alcohol and the urge to scream into the sky about the injustices of the world and her own stupidity, and she could not form a clear thought for the life of her.

There was nothing but the panic bubbling in her chest, not letting her breathe as her breath turned into sequence of gasps, searching for air that wasn’t there.

So, with the repentance of the kind of person to lie and deceit, she collected her friends’ valuables, threw her jacket over her arm, and fled, choking out something that sounded like “I’m gonna be sick”. She gave the bartender the wallets and keys and rushed through the crowd out of the bar, tears streaming down her face and the world around her blurry, as her chest heaved with uncontrolled sobs, desperately trying to ignore Jake’s voice shouting if she was okay, and it truly felt like the end of the world for her; like the girl in a movie who just left her soulmate for his own good and she finally knew the kind of destruction and pure, blinding pain that was leaving Jake behind.

The cold air outside Shaw’s didn’t even faze her as she smeared her tears around her face in an attempt to wipe them away, and with the admirable determination of a cowardly Santiago, she rushed down the street, somewhere far away, somewhere she could escape from whatever mess she had caused, when she was stopped in her tracks.

A strong hand had gripped her shoulders and whipped her around, and she was faced with a Jake she had never seen before.

His eyes screamed with desperation, so full of searing pain and confusion, but the thin line of his lips revealed his anger all the same, his expression twisted.

“What the fuck are you doing, Santiago?!”

Amy tripped backwards, almost falling in the process, still lost for words. Jake’s voice boomed through the street, strained with the emotional baggage of a man searching for answers.

“Just tell me what I did! Do you really think we can keep doing this? We’re colleagues, for fuck’s sake! Just tell me what I did!”

Her chest was heaving with the fear of saying something wrong, something worse than what she had been doing, the fear of destroying what little they had left even further. At last, there was only one sentence that she could think of, words she was able to blurt out into the night.

“Jake, I saw your tattoo.”

The angry creases around his eyes smoothed with sudden confusion and his lips fell apart just ever so slightly, mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for air.

“What?”

She had blown the anger out of him, his voice nothing but a choke for answers in the cold night. His brows knitted and his gaze was incredulous, as if questioning her sanity, a fear they shared.

“So what?”, he whispered.

“I’m pretty sure it’s mine.”

The busy city-night around them ceased to exist, the noise of music from the bar, cars driving past and people’s voices from the other side of the street all seemed to be separated from them, not a part of their reality anymore. It was just them and the bubble they were inside.

“And that’s why you’ve been ignoring me?”

His voice had a significant quiver that Amy longed to soothe. She nodded without a thought.

Jake stepped back, out of their bubble, and suddenly the world started rotating again.

“That’s all I needed to know.”

And with that he turned away, feet carrying him back in Shaw’s direction with slumped shoulders and head hung low, and Amy stared at his back with an open mouth.

She had somehow made this even worse than before. Everything she touched was exploding into a million pieces, shattering her very existence.

“Jake, wait, you don’t understand-“, she shouted as she picked up her pace, trying to catch up with him, and he swerved around at her words, hands put up and a strained, unreal smile plastered onto his lips that hurt to see.

“Oh, it’s fine! I do, Amy, I really do, better than you think. I understand everything now. I won’t bother you anymore, and so will you. All’s good.”

And with that fake chirp in his voice, a put-on demeanour to hide what he was truly saying, he turned back around and rushed into an oncoming group of a drunk stag party, disappearing in their midst, and when Amy had finally fought her way through the crowd while crying his name, she discovered that he had disappeared into the night, escaped somewhere far away.

Amy couldn’t blame him, really, because the last person she wanted to be with right now was her own pathetic self standing on the pavement with tears running down her cheeks and the realization that she had fucked everything up for good.

Jake should have known that Boyle had been up to something. Sure, he had noticed Amy’s presence in a booth at the far back of Shaw’s when they’d entered right away, but at this point, he didn’t even want to try and talk to her right now; all he wanted was to get drunk with Boyle and forget about his friendship with Amy that seemed entirely lost at this point. So after maybe an hour of knocking back beer after beer, a very useful tactic for forgetting about one’s sorrows, loudly proclaiming that he “Didn’t even care” (which was a lie because he did, he did so damn much), Jake had reached the point of drunkenness that didn’t feel light and distracting anymore; no, he was in the stage in which he would start depressing over the littlest things. Right then and there, Amy’s sudden aversion to him was anything but little, though.

And as Charles dropped him on a wide-eyed, mute Amy, all he could do was hide his face, bury it in his arms while he wrecked his woozy brain for the thousandth time in the past two weeks, going over every little detail of what happened in Tottenville and even the days before then, to maybe figure out and understand what the hell had happened to make her ignore him completely in the span of one day.

Of course, the one thing that stuck out was the morning, as they woke up with his body literally wrapped around hers. As much as he wished to forget it, Jake couldn’t. The softness of her body against his, her warmth, her smell, all of Amy Santiago that had been right there in his arms, was everything he’d wished for ever since that date, his prize for winning the bet.

But it had been an accident, nothing serious, and they were professionals after all, professional enough for Jake to take a very long, ice-cold shower right after he had fled into the bathroom. Mere two hours later she had gotten sick forcing her to take a day off, and the day after that, everything was off. Amy had come in with her head hung low, without a greeting to anybody and she’d sat down, not even throwing a glance towards Jake as he greeted her, only offering a mumble that sounded somewhat like “Hello”.

Amy sometimes had days when she just got up on the wrong foot, so Jake hadn’t worried about it too much. Usually, after an hour at the very most, she’d be in a good mood again due to being able to work. That hadn’t been the case, though.

It didn’t stop. She refused to say more than anything confined to smalltalk, avoided him at every cost, not even looking at him. Jake, a slut for her attention, whether it was an endearing eyeroll at one of his jokes or just bantering, couldn’t handle it at all. Who just started acting like that without an explanation?

Jake knew Amy better than anybody. She had a self-destructive habit of over-worrying, even sending herself into anxiety and panic attacks on occasion, but she also always had clear reasoning for what she did. She would never just ignore her desk-partner without what seemed to be a good reason in her eyes.

So Jake made it his mission to find that very reason, but his mind ran empty after pondering over everything that had happened in the days leading up to her sudden aversion. He loved a good case, with few clues and theories making it seemingly impossible to crack, which made the satisfaction of solving it even greater. And he looked further and further, riding himself into a self-depressing spiral of all the things he had done wrong in their entire friendship, all the times he had annoyed her and just been his immature self.

Maybe there just wasn’t a single incident. Maybe Amy had realized after all these years that she was too good for Jake and resorted to this, to make her life easier. And perhaps Jake couldn’t even blame her. He could never deserve her.

That was why he had pushed down his resurfacing affections for her after the break-up with Sophia for several months on end to preserve their friendship, and in the end, it had all been for nothing. Amy had recognized how much better she could have.

And then, when she told him why on the dirty sidewalk outside Shaw’s that she was a match for his tattoo, the reason why she had started ignoring him, and all of the drunken self-doubt and hate in Jake’s head started adding up. His soulmate didn’t want him.

_“And that’s why you’ve been ignoring me?”_

_And thus, all of his worst fears in the world were proven right with a single nod of her head._

Amy Santiago was his; the most amazing woman he had ever met, the one who knew him and could make him laugh like no other person in the world, the one he had trusted enough to tell why he didn’t believe in soulmates, his best friend in the world, the girl of his dreams, was his actual soulmate. And she had rejected him.

Typical Jake Peralta stuff, he convinced himself. Maybe his parent’s failure was hereditary, and he was just such a mess of a person, one none could love, uncapable of acting maturely and responsibly – of course Amy wouldn’t want him. Who could blame her?

Surely not Jake.

It was needless to say that for the past three weeks, everyone at the 99 had been absolutely clueless as to what had happened between their two best detectives. There were rumours of every kind; a hook-up gone wrong, some kind of deep betrayal or just a building block of life. In the end, no one knew, but nobody truly seemed to care for what was truth or not. They just wanted life to be normal again.

The bullpen’s dynamic had changed with the snap of a finger. When previously it was just mildly discomforting that Detectives Santiago and Peralta weren’t talking, it was now downright disturbing. Amy looked worse every day, and Jake, well, Jake – he was as loud and attention-seeking as ever, but it was different. His jokes were empty, devoid of any real thought behind them, a ruse to cover up whatever emptiness hid behind his eyes.

Nothing could touch him. Jake was the king of the world, he just had to convince himself of it. Because after all, if his own soulmate couldn’t even stand the thought of him being her match, then he had to fill that hole with something else. Maybe he just needed to convince everyone around them that he truly was okay, and one day, he actually would be. That’s how it had always worked for him.

It didn’t matter that Jake woke up every morning with dried tears on his cheeks, or that his evenings consisted of lying in his bed wrapped around his blanket while listening to Taylor’s saddest hits; it didn’t matter that Amy was calling him every day and sending him e-mails left unopened, or that she tried talking to him every day. It didn’t matter at all; none of it did. Because if he just filled that empty hole, maybe he would actually believe it.

One week had passed since their colleague’s disastrous attempt to force a confrontation, and everyone was on tiptoes around them. Jake had noticed it of course, but he didn’t want to know anything of it. He just needed to act like all was okay until it was. One day he could forget about his biggest disappointment; the rejection of his soulmate.

Of course, she wouldn’t want him. He was more than a mess; a disaster. And the sole reason why he swiped away her calls and deleted her e-mails was that he didn’t want to hear her personal explanation for doing what she did, because he didn’t need it.

Jake Peralta truly trusted Amy’s judgement on this. She hadn’t ever been wrong before, had she?

Because his questions were finally answered; the most anguishing weeks in his recent memory seemed like a trauma-ridden blur long passed. He couldn’t even remember their last day as normal friends and colleagues, down in Tottenville, where he had woken up with her body in his arms.

But that didn’t matter now, because Amy had made her choice and all Jake could do was to wait until he could forget the loss of his one chance at love. And he was doing everything he could, he really was. It was the perfect solution, because she had taken away his decision in the matter. All was going to be alright.

So, Jake had no other choice than to play his part of the class clown under the worried eyes of his friends and colleagues. One day, it would blow over, and they’d all forget. Because really, how could he miss what he never had?

Hitchcock’s birthday was just around the corner on Saturday, so everyone decided to celebrate Friday night at Shaw’s. Nobody really cared for the occasion though, which didn’t annoy Hitchcock in the slightest; it was actually just everyone’s desperate need for a strong drink after a hellish week.

Even Holt accompanied them, giving out a single drink for everyone, and a night of drinks and conversation was carried out in various booths of Shaw’s bar. Jake and Charles had retreated into some far corner and Jake played his usual, careless, happy self while Charles, well Charles tried. He really did. And Jake appreciated that.

Until, when he was on a long, drawn-out ramble about the cinematography of the second Die Hard, when Charles interrupted him without even a sliver of regret.

“Jake, do you really want to act like everything’s fine?”

Jakes voice got stuck in his throat, the words he wasn’t even registering anymore lost along the way. He stared at Boyle, head slightly askew.

“What do you mean? I’m fine.”

Charles sighed. “I don’t know what happened between you and Santiago, but Jake, something’s off. We all know. You act like you’re putting on a show for the whole world.”

Jake’s mind ran empty for an answer. He wasn’t putting on a show; he was just convincing himself. How was that so bad? Why couldn’t they just let him be?

“Santiago looks like she hasn’t slept in days. She asked me several times if I could get you to talk to her.”

Jake stayed silent; eyes focused on a ridge in the wooden table. Charles leaned forwards; voice low and serious.

“She showed up at my door last night, crying. Do you know how hard it was, sending her away? I couldn’t tell her anything, Jake. Nobody can.”

Amy wasn’t the victim here, Jake thought. He was, obviously. He was the one being denied a soulmate. Whatever reason she’d had for avoiding him after realising they were each other’s match didn’t really matter to him, because it all just resulted in the same; he wasn’t good enough for her. What the hell was her problem?

He was. If she didn’t want him, he had to be a special kind of awful. It all came back around to the same conclusion once again; Jake was a disastrous mess, unfit to be loved.

“You can’t keep doing this. You have to talk to her, Jake.”

“I don’t. This will blow over, Boyle. Don’t you worry about it.”

And with a snap, Jake had successfully pushed away his bubbling emotions and he shot his friend an encouraging smile that was met with a sombre expression he couldn’t quite place.

“I’m gonna get another beer. You want one, too?”, Jake asked as he got up, and Charles shook his head as if defeated.

He shrugged and with his empty bottle in hand, he wound his way through the crowded bar up to the counter where Terry was standing, a crowd of on-lookers around him as he was talking animatedly. Jake recognized the story immediately: The meeting of Sharon and him. Terry really never got tired of that one, it seemed.

And just to humour himself, Jake pretended to listen and care, because well, soulmates, that just obviously wasn’t his thing. Just like his parents, he wasn’t meant for it. It happened. It was the course of life.

The chattering and music, Terry’s loud retelling of his favourite story all melded together in the background and something emerged from the very back of his rattled mind.

_You’re in denial, Jake. You need to snap out._

Jake used to be so excited about finding his soulmate. He was so proud of his tattoo; what a nice compliment it was. He had always thought his smile to be one of his best features. But when Roger left them, Jake had to grow up and realize the ugly reality of soulmates fewest people wanted to face. That soulmates weren’t as eternal as everyone told you; they didn’t hold the promise of ever-lasting love. Soulmates could destroy and wreck you. The power your soulmate had over you was unlike any other. They could scramble your mind and leave you in shambles. They could be arrogant and reckless, too focused on their own well-being to even think of others. Jake had to help his mother get her life back when Roger did just that, and as he spent holidays in front of the TV, alone, with cereal and an unholy amount of romantic movies on almost every channel, he swore that he would never fall victim the way his mother did.

And yes, perhaps before he went undercover for six months, the thought that Amy and he were compatible had crossed his mind more than once. It pushed him to tell her, because even if they weren’t, they could still be in a relationship - had it not been for Teddy. And maybe Sophia had helped him forget all about his lovey-dovey feelings for his best friend, and maybe it hadn’t been enough because after Tottenville and the following two weeks –

Nobody was in denial. Least of all Jake. He understood everything perfectly.

Jake was standing next to the counter, already forgotten why he was there in the first place and as he scanned the surrounding people under the dim light for someone to talk to, his gaze crossed Amy’s.

She was sat in a booth on the far away wall next to Gina and Rosa who were obviously in a conversation which Amy wasn’t participating in. No, she was looking towards the Sarge and in doing so, her eyes had found Jake’s.

How he longed for what they could have had. What wouldn’t he give to wake up next to her in the morning and kiss her bed-headed hair, maybe prepare some overcooked, salty breakfast that would still be better than anything she could ever make? Feel her sun-kissed skin under his hands and lips and make her writhe and moan underneath him. Listen to her ramblings about the importance of organization and exactitude in the modern age. Make her laugh, make her happy, make her all the things soulmates were supposed to.

Because she was his soulmate, and that was supposed to be their destiny. Amy was his fate, and Jake was hers. They were complimentary parts of a whole, but Jake was so broken and messy, he had destroyed both of their opportunities for a life filled with joy and fulfilment. Like two puzzle pieces, but he was broken through the middle. Incompatible.

Hot, stingy tears were burning behind his eyes and Jake knew that if he didn’t somehow get away right now, he would start crying in front of the whole bar. He took off to the bathroom, his last resort, and went into the cubicle to sit down on the closed lid of the toilet and gather his strengths and thoughts. How long would his life be like this? When would he feel like an actual person again?

The nasty bathroom surely wasn’t helping to clear up his cluttered mess of a head, and Jake knew that sitting there and crying wouldn’t make it better. However, going home and crying seemed like a more appropriate choice.

So he left, fought his way through the crowd without a spared glance towards Amy’s direction and the chilly evening air swatted him across the cheek like a slap when he entered the street. He only lived about 15 minutes away, so he would probably just walk and-

“Jake?”

The voice was but a meek, tiny sound in the darkness around them, and it activated Jake’s flight-instinct in a matter of seconds.

Amy had been standing to the side of the exit in the middle of a shame-cigarette, and Jake had literally not seen her in his hurry to get home. The sound of her voice made the urge to leave immediately even stronger.

Because as he looked at her downtrodden, dark eyes that used to laugh so brightly with him, he couldn’t bear to stand looking at her for even for a single more second.

“Jake, I know you don’t want to talk, but please just listen.”

The crushed slump in her shoulders accompanied the quiet, broken tone of her voice perfectly. Jake just stared at her, tensing up more with each passing second.

“I don’t know what you could tell me that I don’t already know.”

His chest was burning, actually aching with the need to touch her, hold her, wipe away the sorrow in her eyes and give her the happiness she deserved, but she had made it clear enough that he was the reason for that sorrow. Wasn’t he?

“It’s not what you think. Please just listen for one minute and after that, you can never look at me again if you want. One minute. Please.”

In the end, Jake Peralta was a sucker for Amy. He had always been a slut for her attention and denying her a minute of his time was nothing in comparison to what he would give her if he could - an entire lifetime. So of course, he nodded, closed his eyes and waited for whatever stupid reasoning she had that he didn’t already know himself. He heard her take a deep, sharp breath, before the breaking of the dam.

“I didn’t avoid you because I didn’t want you to be my soulmate, I thought you didn’t want me to be yours.”

Now that he didn’t expect.

Jake’s eyes snapped open instantly and he stared at Amy like she was an absolutely insane person.

“What?”

“I know you don’t believe in soulmates because of your parents, so I thought that you wouldn’t want to be with me. Last week, what you told me – I had no idea you thought of it like that. I made everything worse because I didn’t want to be rejected, and-“, her rambling was interrupted by a sob that accompanied the long dried tears on her cheeks, “and you thought I didn’t want you even though I do, I do so much, and I was such a god damn idiot about all of this and-“

“You want me?”, Jake breathed and Amy halted in the middle of her sentence, eyes glistening with oncoming tears and she nodded so enthusiastically, her hair bobbed up and down and thus, a lifetime of denial and doubts was released when Jake swept her up in a hug so tight he might just break her but he didn’t care because _Amy Santiago wanted him and he had been such a blind idiot and-_

Her frame shivered in his embrace but Jake held on to her for dear life, his nose buried in her neck, inhaling all of her as he felt her arms loop around his neck and they just clung onto each other as if the entire world depended on it.

“I’m so sorry- “, Amy started mumbling into his chest where her face was pressed into his shirt, but he rubbed her back soothingly.

“Shut up, I was being an idiot, too. All that matters is that you told me”, he whispered and Amy shook in his arms with the release of long, drawn out sobs that she had been holding in for quite some time, it seemed.

They stood there for a while, under the crackling streetlight with a bulb that gave out every few moments as they relished in each other’s presence after three weeks of not even looking at each other, and Jake couldn’t believe how he had misunderstood literally _everything._ The urge to punch himself for his own stupidity was just barely overpowered by the need to hold onto Amy and feel her chest heaving against his, her fingers stroking his shoulder-blades, and her face buried in his chest.

“Can I see your tattoo?”, he mumbled after a while, and Amy slowly released her hold on him with a chuckle.

“Of course. Do you still remember what it says?”, she asked, and Jake couldn’t help but pull a face.

“Something about you being cute, I still remember that”, he admitted with a boyish smile. Amy’s eyes laughed along with her and to Jake, it made the world look like everything was finally back in place again.

She held onto his shoulder and Jake wrapped his arm around her middle for support as she lifted her left leg up to pull up the bottom of her pants and angled it for Jake to see, just above her ankle.

_You’re way too cute to love rules so much._

The air around them was filled with giggles as they gazed at the words and Jake remembered the day like it was yesterday. Amy had transferred from the 64, and from a friend in the same precinct, he had heard that she was a real rule-stickler, a teacher’s pet, someone who wasn’t fun to work with. He obviously hadn’t agreed with that notion upon his first impression.

“You really do love rules, though”, Jake quipped and Amy’s constant giggle turned into another laugh and she looked at him with those eyes he knew so well and suddenly he felt like the past three weeks hadn’t even happened; all that mattered was Amy in his arms right here and now and the look she was giving him, as if they were the only thing that even existed, this moment right there as he held her, the first moment in a long time that really, truly mattered.

Amy appeared radiant, a direct opposition to her demeanour mere minutes ago and yes, she had always been beautiful in his eyes, would always be, but right now, he was holding a goddess in his arms and Jake allowed himself to believe for the first time in ever that there was really someone in the world meant for him, truly and only for him, and it was Amy, of course it was her, because he couldn’t imagine loving her to be a difficult task.

“Ames, I’m so sorry for what I’ve been doing, I was just convinced that- “

Amy interrupted him with a shush and her hands slid up his chest and came to a rest at the side of his neck, thumbs stroking his cheeks in a slow, deliberate manner. A shiver ran down his spine at her tender touch.

“Let’s just agree that we were both idiots”, she whispered, smile plastered onto her face and eyes glistening with what looked like, or rather Jake hoped to be, happy tears.

With Jakes arm still wrapped around her middle, they were close enough to breathe the same air now, intoxicating Jake with her sweet, jasmine smell. She looked so perfectly tantalizing, the most exquisite he’d ever seen her with sore, wet eyes, smudged mascara and hair messy from anxiously roaming through it all day long, and Jake knew that this was the moment, the moment he’d waited god how long for, but-

“What are you thinking right now?”, she breathed, watching his expression. Jake bit his lip to hide a nervous smile, a ridiculous notion in face of the love of his life.

“I’m not sure if I should kiss you right now.”

Amy straightened up in his arms and brought her face closer, mere inches away from his.

“As your trusty best friend with the soundest advice at all times, I’m really sure you should.”

And that was all Jake needed to close the gap between them and he crushed his lips onto hers, and he knew this was it, this was them, because it felt as if his entire being dissolved, as was hers, and their atoms melded together as he felt the fierce need to get even closer, feel all of her so the only logical thing was to kiss her even harder as he greedily gripped at her sides.

He gathered her up in his arms and nothing in the world mattered anymore, nothing at all, all there was, was Amy in his arms, Amy, who was digging her nails into the back of his neck and Amy, who angled her head to deepen their kiss.

The fire inside Jake that Amy had ignited the day they met took over at last and he felt aflame at her touch everywhere, the choked up sound of a moan at the back of her throat sending vibrations through his body, and the magnetic pull from somewhere deep in his gut to get closer was so irresistible, to get impossibly closer as their atoms reconnected and suddenly Jake wasn’t just Jake anymore; he was complete with all of Amy, like an existence new-born.

“Get a room!”

A drunken holler from across the street accompanied by a myriad of cackles and laughter was what ripped them from the trance that was a soulmates first kiss, and they separated with heaving chests and beaming smiles on sore lips, in bliss ignorance of the world turning around them.

“Let’s get out of here”, Amy mumbled, eyes glittering with a newfound sense of self that Jake felt, too, as she tucked on a strand of hair at the back of his head.

“Absolutely”, he breathed in response. Life may have just begun, but they had lost too much time, already. Jake wasn’t gonna waste another second.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and please consider leaving a review/kudos!
> 
> My handle on twitter is @barnettdidit feel free to follow and verbally abuse me


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